Revision as of 11:46, 29 November 2011

It is recommended that you back up your site before upgrading to a new version. That way, if something goes wrong during the upgrade process, you can easily restore your site to the earlier version. Also, it is a good idea to review the release notes for the new version to be familiar with what was changed.

Starting with version 1.6, there is a new option for upgrading your site from within Joomla. The old method of upgrading from an archive file still works as well. Both methods are documented here.

Simple Upgrade from Joomla Extension Manager

Step 1: Make sure you have a current backup of your site

Step 2: Find and install uppdates

In the back end of your Joomla site, navigate to Extensions → Extension Manager and open the Update tab.

Click on the Purge Cache icon to clear out the cache.

Click on the Find Updates icon in the toolbar. If there is an available update, the screen will list it, similar to the screen shown below.

Note that available upgrades for extensions used in the site will also show in the list.

Select the update (using the checkbox) and click on the Update icon in the toolbar.

IMPORTANT: This process will take a few minutes. Wait until the process completes and the success message shows, similar to the screen shown below.

Congratulations! At this point, your site is updated. Check that your site is working correctly. If you have any questions before, during, or after the upgrade then please ask them on the Joomla! 1.6 Migrating and Upgrading Forum.

Step 2: Backup your site

Before you actually upgrade, you really should make a backup of your site. Backup your existing Joomla site files and store all the files and database in case something gets messed up, you wont have any problem reverting back.

All upgrades should be first tested on a copy of your site before being applied to a live site.

Step 3: Install the upgrade file

With the 1.7.0 to 1.7.1 upgrade, there are some database changes that need to be made.

If you use one of these manual methods to copy the files, you also need to manually update your site's database. To do so locate the six files beginning with 1.7.1 in the folder /administrator/components/com_admin/sql/updates/mysql.

Inside these files you will find parts like #__modules and #__categories. Replace the pound sign and the first underscore (#_) with your database tables prefix. By default this is jos. If you didn't get the prefix before starting, open your site's configuration.php and search for $dbprefix. The string inside the single quotes behind it is what you're looking for. So you need to change #__languages to jos_languages and so on.

Once you've done this go to your site's phpmyadmin (or any way you usually manage your database) and open the database your site uses. There will be a tab called SQL, open this. Paste the content of your modified sql files inside the text area and press go.

There are different ways of installing a package file depending on your particular circumstances. If you have difficulty with one of these methods, then simply try another.

Alternative 3: If your hosting provider gives you access to your site via some sort of web control panel like CPanel or Plesk, you can use the control panel file manager to upload the package, then use a terminal session (which might also be available via the control panel) to unpack the package file and overwrite all changed files on the server.

Step 4: Check your live site to make sure it is working correctly

Don't assume that the upgrade will work flawlessly just because the test upgrade worked. Check to make sure that nothing untoward has happened. It could be that differences between the live site and test site platforms will bring out a problem that you did not notice during testing. If you find a problem and it cannot be resolved quickly you might have to rollback the upgrade using the backup copy you created in step 2.